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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Why I don't play board games with four-year-olds

This weekend I learned that 4-year olds cheat at board games.

Okay maybe not all 4-year olds, but one in particular. I had the wonderful joy of getting to spend some time with my baby cousin, H. She's as cute as they come and we thrive at any chance we get to see her. She is pug's biggest fan making sure that on Christmas morning he is well aware of everything Santa brought her and refers to Dora's four-legged friend with a true southern twang. It's no longer "Boots" it's "Baaaooouuuts". She's such a love. This weekend boy went to a Star's hockey game with her mom, dad and brother and I jumped at the chance to entertain Miss H.

After a rather quick two bite meal we began the festivites with Hi Ho Cherry-O. A classic where you spin the wheel and it tells you how many cherries to add or remove. Simple enough until a certain 4-year old begins to change up the rules. In the end the game became "I spin for you" and "I win". I bite my tongue and reminded myself she is only four...she is only four.

Then after I had enough of "no I spin again" I suggested a new game, Candyland. My childhood favorite. I felt this would be amuch simpler game to play since there is no spinner involved. After spending 5 minutes deciding which color we would be and me getting stuck with the not-so-pretty-girl-color piece we began. After 30 minutes of a grueling Candyland game where we changed pieces numerous times, didn't want to pass by the "scary" licorice monster so we had to jump over half the board because those are the rules, we made it to the end with a very victorious 4-year old and a very exhausted adult with a bleeding tongue from biting it so many times.

7 comments:

Oh girl! do I understand! We try hard to teach losing as much as winning but losing isn't as much fun. However, we strive to teach him to lose well .... we are working on it. Maybe one day we will accomplish our task :)